Paul Jennings' Trickiest Stories

by Paul Jennings

  ‘Did you call me an idiot?’ said the driver. He was an awfully big bloke.

  ‘Well,’ said Dad, trying to laugh. ‘Look what you’ve done.’ They stared at our splattered car. I pretended I wasn’t there.

  ‘An idiot, eh,’ said the driver. ‘An idiot, am I? I guess I’m so dumb that I couldn’t even tighten the valve up properly.’ He jumped up on the back of the truck and began turning the wheel. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘I seem to be turning it the wrong way.’

  ‘Aghhhh…’ I screamed. ‘No. Mercy. No, no, no.’

  But I was too late. An enormous jet of bilious brown sludge hit me in the head. It flooded. It surged. It filled the car to the top of the doors and poured down onto the street.

  I gagged and gasped in the middle of my own private cesspool. Horrible lumps floated by. A rotting fish head swirled by in its own polluted sea.

  Our car had been transformed into an ecological disaster.

  I fumbled for the door handle and was swept out onto the footpath by the unspeakable flow.

  My ears and eyes and nose were choked with the filth. I coughed and spluttered and dragged myself across the footpath. People on the street jumped back in horror. They held handkerchiefs to their noses.

  They glared at me as if I was a monster spewed up from dark and hideous places. I stood up and shook myself like a dog coming out of the water. A moaning sigh of horror swept across the passers-by. They fell back in fear as my spray scattered in the breeze.

  The smell was terrible. I stank like a sewer. I dripped with dung. Foulness fell like melting manure from my putrid skin. I choked with each tortured breath.

  The guy in the blue singlet thought it was funny. He started laughing. He turned off the terrible flow, jumped in his truck and drove off.

  Dad just stood there staring at his contaminated car and shaking his head.

  ‘Help,’ I gurgled. Brown bubbles formed on the end of my nose as I spoke. I felt weak. The fumes were making my head spin. Suddenly my brown world turned to black. I collapsed on the footpath.

  4

  When I awoke most of the muck had gone. Dad stood squirting me with a hose that the butcher had lent him. ‘You’ll be okay,’ said Dad with a grin. ‘It’s all part of the rich pageant of life.’ He took a deep breath, blew up his cheeks and started to hose out the car. Every now and then he dashed away and gulped fresh air.

  But there was no fresh air for me. I stank. I staggered over to a flower-box outside a shop. I swear that the flowers wilted in front of my eyes. People crossed the street to avoid the mad father flushing out his car. And his horrible, stinking son.

  It was a hot day and a lot of the gunk had become baked on the car. Dad couldn’t get it off. The butcher approached with a handkerchief over his nose. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to get that thing out of here. I’m losing business.’

  Dad opened the car door.

  ‘Get in,’ he said to me.

  ‘You’re joking,’ I gasped. ‘It’ll never start.’

  ‘Get in,’ he said again.

  I did as I was told. I squeezed into the sodden, foul seat. Dad turned over the engine. It started first go. I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘They don’t build ’em like this any more,’ Dad said with a smile.

  We set off down the road throwing a brown shower out behind us. Talk about embarrassing. Now it was us who were polluting the neighbourhood. The following cars tooted and bipped. Drivers shook their fists at us as freckles of foulness spattered their windscreens.

  ‘Step on it,’ I said to Dad. ‘I can’t take much more of this.’ Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had nothing on this car.

  After what seemed about ten years Dad finally reached our house. ‘You go in and have a shower,’ he said. ‘I’m taking the car into town to get it steam-cleaned.’

  I was already halfway to the door before he’d finished talking. A shower. Oh, how I longed for a shower. I stayed under the water for at least an hour. I scrubbed. And rubbed. I soaped and soaked. I had to get every bit of gunk off my skin.

  This was pollution of the worst type. Who knew what chemicals had been dumped in that pond?

  At last I jumped out of the water. I dried myself and put on my new earring. Then I examined my reflection in the mirror. Something was wrong. Maybe the sludge had seeped into my skin. I sniffed myself all over like a dog. I didn’t seem to smell. But something was different. My skin tingled. It felt strange. Still, after what had happened it was no wonder.

  I walked down to the kitchen. That’s when everything started to go wrong.

  5

  A movement in the corner caught my eye. Someone had thrown a used tissue there. It was flapping in the breeze. Except there was no breeze. Without warning, the tissue sort of flapped and twirled and then flew across the room. It plastered itself onto my face.

  I gave a little scream and tore it off. It twisted and squirmed in my hand. I screwed it into a ball and threw it down on the floor. The tissue bounced and then shot back and stuck itself onto my nose.

  I heard a noise. ‘Dad,’ I yelled. But it wasn’t Dad. An empty sardine tin slid towards me. It sped across the floor and attached itself to my right foot. I pulled it off and threw it into the corner where it stayed for about half a second. Then it sped straight back to its place on my foot.

  I rubbed my eyes. This was crazy. First the tissue and now the sardine tin. Sticking to me like glue. What was going on? I pulled on my clothes like a crazy man.

  Something had happened to me. Something awful. I tried to peer at myself in the mirror. But before I could even catch a glimpse of my face my vision was blotted out. About twenty tissues flew out of the waste-paper basket and covered my face.

  Hairs trapped in the plug-hole of the sink started to move. They twirled and then, like flicked rubber bands, shot through the air and stuck to my jumper.

  My mind swirled. Was I going crazy? Was this really happening?

  It was.

  Rubbish. I was attracting rubbish. Like a magnet.

  ‘Newman’s Pond,’ I said to myself. ‘The stinking waste has made me magnetic. Filth is attracting filth.’

  A gnarled old toothbrush swooped towards me. Two empty drink bottles followed.

  I looked around for somewhere to hide. By the door was our phone box. One of those old-fashioned red ones that used to be on street corners. I had laughed when Dad bought it. But now I wasn’t laughing.

  I bolted into the phone box and slammed the door behind me. I made it just in time. The bottles glued themselves to the glass. The toothbrush tried to jiggle its way under the door.

  I tried to think. I was shivering with fear. Rubbish of every sort was seeking me out. My life was in danger. I could be buried. Suffocated. Bits of fluff and dust were wriggling under the door. Spent matches and bottle tops followed and splotted onto my knees.

  My brain wouldn’t work. ‘Think,’ I said to myself. ‘Think.’

  I was sure that the water from Newman’s Pond had done something to my skin. That man in the blue singlet. He was responsible. He lived with that stuff every day. He must have some sort of soap to cure it.

  I grabbed the phone book and flipped through the pages. ‘South Barwon Council Depot,’ I said to myself. ‘Got it.’

  My fingers fumbled with the dial. I heard the phone ringing at the other end. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Come on, come on.’

  But there was no answer. The man with the blue singlet was probably out in the yard emptying the revolting contents of his truck.

  The phone box was almost completely covered in garbage. Junk was hurtling across the room and flapping on the glass as if it was alive. At any moment the glass might break.

  It was time to make a run for it. I was just about to force the door open when my heart froze in terror.

  Our garbage can was rattling. It jiggled and wiggled as if demons inside were trying to burst out.

  I turned back to the phone book and looked up the taxi company. I dialled with a
shaking hand. ‘Address?’ said a voice.

  ‘Fifteen Henry Street,’ I gasped.

  ‘Going to?’ asked the voice.

  ‘South Barwon,’ I said. ‘The Council Depot.’

  ‘Please wait,’ said a voice on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Hurry,’ I yelled. ‘It’s an emergency.’

  ‘Ten minutes,’ said the voice.

  I stared out of the phone box at the bulging bin over by the sink. At any moment it might burst. I could be trapped in the phone box if I stayed much longer.

  6

  More and more rubbish flattened itself against the glass door. A newspaper flew across the room and flapped over to join the attack. The phone box door was creaking and cracking under the strain. There wasn’t much time left.

  ‘Hurry,’ I shouted. ‘Hurry.’

  A horn sounded from outside. I groaned with relief. A pane cracked next to my ear. Glass and junk exploded into the phone box. I charged out of the house. Our garbage bin rattled and jumped as I ran past it. Debris followed me as I fled.

  I yanked open the taxi door and jumped into the back seat. I slammed the door just in time to keep out most of the garbage. ‘Where to?’ said the taxi driver. He was a little, nervous-looking guy. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw my coating of junk.

  ‘South Barw…’ I started to say. I never finished the sentence. The contents of the taxi’s ashtray flew through the air straight into my mouth. Filthy cigarette butts, ash and dead matches crammed themselves between my lips. I choked and spluttered and spat them out. They stuck to my face like glue.

  ‘What the…’ shouted the taxi driver. ‘Get out of my…’

  We both looked out of the window as a loud bang filled the air. The lid had shot off our garbage bin as if it had been dynamited. The contents were bouncing and flying down the path towards us. They smattered onto the back of the taxi and rattled on the rear window.

  Plastic bags full of refuse were bouncing our way along the track. ‘Quick,’ I screamed. ‘Quick. Move it or we’re history.’

  An empty can of cat food hit the taxi window like a mortar shell. With a loud scream the driver put the car into gear and shot forward. Rubbish bounced and banged along after us.

  We screeched along the track and out onto the road. The back of the car was piled with cans, paper bags, take-away food boxes and other unmentionables. Suddenly the driver hit the brakes. A dog. A dog was on the road.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ I yelled. ‘Whatever you do, don’t stop. We’ll be buried alive.’

  The dog was trotting by with a bone in its mouth. The bone started to jiggle. The dog growled and pulled back as if someone was trying to pull the bone out of its mouth. Suddenly the bone shot out of the dog’s jaws and flew through the air towards us. The dog charged after it, barking and yelping like crazy. The bone banged onto the back of the car and joined the putrid pile on the boot. The back window blacked out as more and more junk gathered.

  The driver raced around the dog and down past the fish factory. ‘No, no. Not that,’ I screamed. Too late. Hundreds of dead, stinking fish slid out of the factory garbage bins. Flying fish. Dead flying fish. They splattered against the car and flapped on the side windows in their thousands.

  ‘My car. My lovely new car,’ groaned the driver.

  ‘Go,’ I yelled. ‘Faster, faster, faster.’

  7

  The driver gunned the engine and we raced along the road and out onto the highway. I thought that the rubbish might fall off as we bounced and lurched around the traffic. But no luck. Every piece of rubbish clung on, trying desperately to get inside. Other junk stirred and flew up as we passed but we were too fast for it. Bits of roadside rubbish fell back like cowboys giving up the chase.

  ‘We’re safe as long as you keep going,’ I shouted over the din of the banging rubbish.

  ‘What happens when we run out of petrol?’ he yelled back.

  ‘A man in a blue singlet,’ I said. ‘At the Council Depot. He knows about it. He must. It’s all his fault. Find him.’

  ‘Find the man in the blue singlet,’ mumbled the driver. He slowed to take a corner and two mouldy cabbages bounced out of a roadside vegetable stall and lobbed onto the bonnet.

  Well, I won’t say much about the rest of the journey. Except to say that it was a nightmare. As we moved further into the countryside I thought it would be better. But it wasn’t. Every time we slowed down, cow pats in the paddock stirred and flew towards us. They splotted on top of our coating of junk and formed a thick, brown crust.

  Only a small clearing on the windscreen remained. The windscreen wipers groaned under the strain. It was me the junk was chasing so I stayed well to the back of the car to attract it away from the windscreen.

  Finally we reached a fence with a dirty sign hanging on the gate. South Barwon Council Depot. We only just made it. The car was covered. It was ten times its size. A slowly moving mountain of litter. We stopped. ‘I can’t see a thing,’ said the driver. ‘This is the end.’

  I looked at the poor guy. He was terrified. ‘It’s okay,’ I told him. ‘It’s me. I attract rubbish. When I get out it’ll all follow me. You’ll be okay.’

  ‘What about my taxi?’ he asked through the gloom. ‘It’s covered in filth.’

  ‘It will all drop off and follow me. Don’t worry about it,’ I said.

  He looked at the meter and held out his hand. ‘Twenty-five dollars sixty,’ he said. ‘And it should be two hundred.’

  Suddenly I felt weak. I went cold all over. I patted my jeans desperately. I searched every pocket. ‘Oh no,’ I groaned. ‘I’ve left my wallet at home.’

  I closed my eyes in despair. When I opened them I saw that the taxi driver had changed. He wasn’t his normal self at all. His face was red. He looked as if he was going to explode.

  ‘What?’ he screamed. ‘After all this you haven’t even got the fare?’ He leaned over and grabbed my T-shirt. He was so mad that he was spitting as he yelled. ‘Right. What have you got then?’

  I fumbled with the strap of my watch. ‘You can have this,’ I said. ‘It’s real valuable.’

  He looked at my watch scornfully as he strapped it on his wrist. ‘Pull the other one,’ he growled. Then he pointed to my ear. ‘I’ll have that as well.’

  I was in no position to argue. I took out my new earring and handed it over. He looked in the mirror and threaded it into a hole in his ear. Then he grinned at me – daring me to object.

  I had nothing else to give. And I had to get out of there. I heaved open the door of the car and plunged out through the rubbish. I rolled over on the ground like a soldier avoiding bullets. Then I folded my head into my arms and waited for the rubbish to hit.

  8

  Nothing. Nothing happened. Not for a second or two anyway. I looked down at my clothes. I was as clean as a whistle.

  Suddenly a terrible scream came from the taxi. The rubbish was piling into the open door. ‘Help,’ yelled the driver. ‘Help, help, help.’ He was completely covered in the seething junk. The pieces of rubbish were like rats pouring into a food bin.

  I looked around the depot for something to pull the rubbish away from the poor man. But it was a very clean yard. Strangely clean for that sort of place. There was nothing I could grab.

  I ran over to a little shed in the corner of the yard. I tried to get in the door but I couldn’t. The shed was filled to the roof with the seething junk. ‘Help,’ came a deep voice from inside. ‘Help.’

  I’d heard that voice before. It was the guy in the blue singlet.

  My head began to spin. The taxi driver was covered in junk. And so was the tanker driver. But the junk wasn’t after me any more. Why?

  Suddenly it came to me. The earrings. Both earrings came from the same shop. And the same pair. The earrings were attracting the junk, not the sludge from Newman’s Pond.

  I ran over to the taxi. ‘The earring,’ I yelled. ‘Take off the earring.’

  There wa
s muttering and spluttering from inside. Suddenly the junk collapsed. Like cans in a supermarket falling, the rubbish tumbled out onto the ground. The taxi driver began to clamber out. He was shaking like a leaf.

  I turned my attention to the man in the blue singlet. ‘Take off your earring,’ I shouted into the junk pile. ‘The earrings attract rubbish when you put them on.’

  There was more muttering and spluttering as the tanker driver reached up and pulled the earring out. Then without warning, his pile of junk collapsed too. His head poked out of the top like a fairy on a horrible Christmas tree. He climbed out towards us. ‘This thing is dangerous,’ he said. ‘I’m getting rid of it.’

  ‘Me too,’ said the taxi driver. They threw back their arms. They were going to hurl the earrings into the paddock.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t throw them away.’ I picked up an empty jar and held it out towards them.

  9

  The next day I walked slowly into the grounds.

  ‘I’m showing these to one of the science teachers,’ I said to Helen. ‘We could be rich and famous.’

  She looked around the schoolyard and then stared at my jar. ‘You’re mad bringing more earrings to school,’ she said.

  ‘Smacka Johns,’ snapped a voice behind me. ‘Come here at once.’

  It was Ms Cranch, the vice principal. She held out her hand. ‘Give me those earrings.’

  ‘But I’m not even wearing them,’ I said as I handed over the jar.

  ‘No jewellery is allowed at school,’ she said.

  Before I could get another word out she turned round and headed off towards her office with my earrings.

  ‘I told you,’ said Helen.

  I mooched around sulking for about five minutes. Then I suddenly cheered up. All around the yard the garbage cans had started to rattle. They jiggled and wiggled as if demons were trying to burst out.

  Loud bangs filled the air as the bins burst their lids. I started to laugh as the contents bounced across the yard towards Ms Cranch’s office.